Review: AFI packs fervor into short show

Jan. 17, 2010

Davey Havok of AFI at the Knitting Factory on Saturday. / Tony Contini

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California rockers AFI have come a long way since its formation in 1991 as a hardcore punk band.

No longer is it playing hardcore punk, but melodic, anthemic rock songs with thoughtful lyrics. And no longer is it playing tiny Reno clubs to 100 people, as it did in the 1990s at places like the long-gone Fallout Shelter.

Instead, the band has become platinum-selling rockers and played to a sold-out house of about 1,200 on Saturday at the Knitting Factory. Although it was a short show, the band played with the kind of fervor found in a young band with big aspirations.

34-year-old frontman Davey Havok, with short-ish hair and looking less glammed up than in recent years, commanded the stage, prancing, climbing and jumping around it like a mountain lion, much to the delight of the highly approving crowd.

The band stuck almost exclusively to the aforementioned platinum-selling albums in the show, including the songs “Medicate,” “Girl’s Not Grey,” “Leaving Song Pt. 2” and “Kill Caustic.” The first 30 minutes of the show were loaded heavily with songs from its latest album, “Crash Love.”

While signs of AFI’s hardcore roots were present, it was not the sound the band delivered that night, which is appropriate, given that most of the band’s fans came on board after the band had shifted away from hardcore.

Instead, AFI left the hardcore heavy lifting to opening acts Ceremony and Viva Hate, both of which delivered more than enough machine-gun beats and growling to please the average hardcore fan.

At AFI’s 50-minute mark, many of us were left looking confused (I was nearly dumbfounded), when the band said good-bye and left the stage before returning for a two-song encore.

In the end, AFI’s set was only 65-minutes. And while those 65 minutes were well-paced and solid, I can’t think of a rock show in recent years that came in so short.

Perhaps more surprising was that the fans let them leave without demanding another encore.